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Chili Peppers Get Shafted by Bruno Mars

January 31, 2014

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February 2 marks the greatest unofficial holiday in America: Super Bowl Sunday. It’s a day where every American, even those who aren’t sports fans, gather around the TV with family and friends to watch football’s best teams duke it out for the championship title. A day where we (or at least, a big chunk of us) slug beers and stuff our faces with delicious, greasy food, even after our bellies beg us to stop. A day that delivers nonstop entertainment, from the actual game itself, to the costly advertisements in between, to the halftime performance that people either love or hate each year. And 2014’s halftime show at MetLife Stadium already has me complaining. Bruno Mars is one of the last acts I’d EVER want to see at the Super Bowl. Was he really the best option? I guess Paul McCartney would’ve been a bad choice, right? Especially since this year, and more specifically this month, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles’ arrival to America. So obviously, nobody wants to see THAT performance. And I guess choosing a rapper—like Eminem, or Drake, or even a medley of them—wouldn’t have been too family friendly. I mean, this is network television we’re talking about here. We can’t have artists cursing on stage or flipping off the cameras; that would be unsavory. And I guess Red Hot Chili Peppers were just too busy to call up, right? Oh wait, what’s that? The Chili Peppers ARE performing?!!

And that’s what pisses me off most: the fact that Red Hot Chili Peppers, a rock band who’ve been popular since the 1980s, are being treated as a side act. Every commercial I saw during last week’s championship games touted Bruno Mars as the halftime performer; there wasn’t ANY mention of RHCP. What kind of madness is that? Couldn’t these commercials advertise both Bruno Mars AND Red Hot Chili Peppers for the halftime show? As TV producers, wouldn’t you want to lure in the fans of TWO artists instead of one? And it’s not like RHCP is some random, two-bit band either. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just two years ago! They spent the last year touring the world! In 2013, Rolling Stone ranked them as one of the best live acts in music, placing them at 21 out of 50! They’re one of the best-selling bands of all time, moving over 60 million albums across the globe! So tell me: why is this head-banging, accomplished group playing second fiddle to Bruno Mars? Maybe at next year’s Super Bowl, we’ll have Bon Jovi opening up for Miley Cyrus or Billy Joel playing piano to Justin Bieber’s introduction.